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Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s political fortunes are looking up on
more than one battlefield. Even as Russian military intervention appears to
have given Assad’s government a new lease on life, sending its soccer team out
to play World Cup qualifying matches allows it to project an image of normality
despite four years of bloody civil war.

Syria may have
suffered a 3-0 defeat at the hands of Japan on Thursday, but it still stands a
chance to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia and the 2019 Asian Cup in
the United Arab Emirates. Despite having never previously qualified for the
World Cup finals and being placed at number 173 on FIFA’s world rankings, Syria
is closer than ever to reaching the tournament at a moment when the country is rent
by a conflict that has claimed more than 200,000 lives and forced millions to
flee their homes.

That’s a remarkable
feat for a tightly-controlled team that many Syrians believe represents the
government rather than a nation effectively split into fiefdoms. Indeed, some
of the national team’s players have joined the revolt against Assad, while
others have fled the country. Some on the squad are believed to be still
playing because they felt they had no choice. There’s no doubt that some of the
national team’s players are happy to play and support Assad; it’s just not
clear how many.

Whatever their true
feelings, however, Syrian players have no choice but to ensure that their
public statements don’t cross the Assad government. “We come from all aspects
of Syria. Whether you are a Christian or a Muslim or any sector of Islam we’re
all one family, we’re playing for one team, one country,” team captain Abdulrazak Al Husein told The Guardian in
advance of the match against Japan.

Al Husein’s professed
optimism puts a brave face on a bad situation. “At the end of the day, we’re
playing for the country, hoping it will get back to the way it was. The best
thing we can do is unite the people of Syria,” Al Husain said.

On the ground, however,
few believe that Syria can be restored as a nation state within its
pre-conflict borders. Russian intervention is widely seen as an effort to
ensure that Assad controls a swath of land stretching from Damascus to Latakia
on the Mediterranean coast that could constitute a rump state built around his
Alawite minority — one of several entities that could emerge from the ruins of
Syria.

Those realities on
the ground compel a team that ostensibly represents all of Syria to play its
home games in different Arab capitals, while players don’t even have the
advantage of fan support for club matches in stadiums in Damascus — from which
spectators have been largely banned. The sound of fan support in broadcasts of
league matches played in the capital has been replaced with that of bombings
and firearms in the distance.

Syria’s recent soccer
successes are all the more remarkable given that they have not been marred as
in the past by allegations of wrongdoing. FIFA barred Syria from competing for
the 2014 World Cup after it fielded an ineligible player in a qualifying match
against Tajikistan. At about the same time, Lebanon accused Syria of fielding
six overage players in an Under-19 Asian Football Championship (AFC) qualifier.

Political control of
soccer in Syria long predates the civil war. Al Jaish, the military-owned club
that is run like a unit of the armed forces, was long Syria’s foremost club and
supplied the majority of the country’s national team players. Its military
backing allowed it to fend off allegations of corruption and match-fixing.

While the government
still controls the national soccer association as well as the national team and
clubs in those parts of Syria it still administers, its control of the sport is
no longer absolute. Players are spread across the globe, some playing for land
and glory, others to evade repercussions for relatives left behind.

Mosab Balhous, the
team’s goalkeeper, was arrested in 2011 on charges of supporting opposition
movements and sheltering rebel fighters, and vanished for a year before
suddenly re-joining the squad in 2012. The national youth team’s folk-singing
goalkeeper Abdel Basset Al-Saroot became a leader of the uprising in Homs
before initially joining the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which
he left last year to join Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate the Nusra Front.

Swedish-Assyrian
international Louay Chanko opted out of the Syrian team because of what he
called “corruption.” Striker Omar Al-Soma was allowed in recent years to play
for the national squad despite not having fulfilled his military service and
his reported sympathy for the rebellion. Another player is in Turkey, trying to
make his way to Europe. Striker Firas al-Khatib, who plays for Kuwait’s
Al-Arabi SC, left the national team in 2012 because he did not want to
represent the Assad government. The departure for Germany of youth team captain
Mohammad Jaddoua prompted the Syrian Football Association (SFA) to ban players
from traveling abroad except for on official business.

Other players have
joined a team in Lebanon fielded by the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army that hopes
to one day be Syria’s national team. It sports green jerseys, the color of the
anti-Assad revolt as opposed to the national squad’s red. The team’s coach,
Walid al-Muhaidi, says he escaped Syria in 2013 together with some 100
athletes.

Speaking on an opposition radio station, a Free Syrian Army player
charged that the national team’s flag was the flag of blood. “Leave such a
criminal team. It is not Syria’s team, it is the team of a criminal regime,”
the player said.

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile